Harvey Weinstein whistle-blower Ambra Battilana has shared an inspirational quote about persevering through hard times on Instagram as more and more allegations against Weinstein come to light.
Battilana reported Weinstein to the police in 2015, alleging that the mogul touched her inappropriately. She went on to be part of an NYPD sting to catch him admitting to the assault, secretly recording him for detectives.
With her story now squarely in the public eye and earning international attention, the 24-year-old model is taking to social media to make it clear she’s not backing down.
Speaking out: Harvey Weinstein whistle-blower Ambra Battilana Gutierrez took to Instagram on Wednesday to share some inspirational words, urging people to ‘have perseverance’
Meaningful: The model shared a quote from French-Polish physicist Marie Curie
On Wednesday morning, she shared a professional modeling photo on Instagram, a black-and-white shot of herself in a bra and leggings, putting on a sheer blouse.
‘Life is not easy for any of us,’ she captioned the image, attributing the quote to Marie Curie. ‘But what of that? We must have perseverance and, above all, confidence in ourselves. We must believe we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.’
She also added the hashtags #blessed, #life, and #shareyourblessings.
Battilana is likely feeling vindicated after having her story hidden in the shadows for so long.
This week, she was named among the many women who have accused Weinstein of sexual assault and harassment. Damning details about her personal ordeal have also been made public, along with an audio recording of a police sting she was involved in — which did not end in his arrest.
Published by the New Yorker on Tuesday, the clip captured Weinstein apologizing to Battilana shortly after she accused him of groping her. He also pressures her to come into a hotel room with him.
Battilana is one of the eight women who allegedly received a settlement from Weinstein, according to the explosive New York Times investigation that was released on Thursday.
Flashback: The 24-year-old, pictured earlier this year, accused Weinstein of groping her and putting his hand up her skirt in 2015 and went to police in New York about the incident
Closing in: Ambra worked with the NYPD in order to try and catch Weinstein in the act of making a move on her
Weinstein first met Battilana at a show he was producing in New York on March 2015. The film mogul introduced himself to her and repeatedly stated that she looked like Mila Kunis, according to an expose by the New Yorker.
He scheduled a meeting at his Tribeca office with her the following day through her agency. She was sitting on the couch when he started staring at her breasts and then asked if they were real.
Battilana later told NYPD officers that soon after, Weinstein lunged at her and groped her breasts and tried to put his hand under her skirt. She said he eventually backed off and then invited her to the Broadway play Finding Neverland with him the following night.
The Italian model never showed up at the play because she went to file a police report at an NYPD precinct regarding the alleged abuse. With the help of undercover officers, Battilana arranged to meet Weinstein again at the Tribeca Grand Hotel on March 28, 2015.
She wore a wire to record her conversation with Weinstein during which he spoke of the actresses he had helped with their careers and offered to get her a dialect coach.
Weinstein was caught on the recording asking Battilana to come up to his hotel room and watch him shower. After initially repeatedly protesting, Battilana agreed to go upstairs. However, at the last minute in the hallway, Battilana changed her mind and begged him to let her leave.
‘I don’t want to,’ ‘I want to leave,’ and ‘I want to go downstairs,’ she says in the audio.
Catching him in the act: She agreed to wear a wire and meet Weinstein again to get him to admit to groping her
Going nowhere? Charges were never filed despite damning audio obtained by the NYPD
When she asked him why he groped her breasts, Weinstein responds: ‘Oh, please, I’m sorry, just come on in. I’m used to that. Come on. Please… I won’t do it again.’
Earlier in the recording he could be heard telling her: ‘I’m telling you right now, get in here. I’m going to take a shower, you sit there and have a drink.
‘I’m not doing anything with you, I promise,’ he said before adding, ‘Now you are embarrassing me’ as she protested in the hall.
Battilana said: ‘No, yesterday was kind of aggressive for me.’
Weinstein responded: ‘Don’t embarrass me in the hotel, I’m here all the time.
‘I’m not going to do anything and you’ll never see me again after this. If you embarrass me in this hotel where I’m staying at…
‘Honey don’t have a fight with me in the hallway. Please, I’m not going to do anything, I swear on my children. Please come in. On everything, I’m a famous guy.
‘I will never do another thing to you. Don’t ruin your friendship with me for five minutes. Please you’re making a big scene.’
After going back and forth for two minutes, Weinstein agreed to let her go.
An NYPD commander with knowledge of the case had revealed to The Daily Beast that detectives were on the scene and hoping to catch Weinstein in the act so that they might be able to arrest him on the spot.
Taking a stand: She immediately went to police after the groping and in a subsequent meeting, while wearing a wire, she was pressured to go with Weinstein to his hotel room
Instead, Weinstein was later picked up by the detectives and taken in for questioning.
Charges were ultimately never filed against Weinstein after details about Battilana’s past began to appear in the tabloid media, including that she had once attended one of the infamous Bunga Bunga parties thrown by former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Revelations also emerged that she had made allegations of sex assault against an Italian businessman but later declined to assist prosecutors.
Soon after the decision to drop the case was made, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance received a $10,000 donation from Weinstein’s longtime litigator.
David Boies cut the five-figure check to the Cyrus Vance for Manhattan District Attorney Campaign on August 24, 2015, making it one of the large donations that Vance received that cycle.
That financial gift to Vance’s campaign came on the heels of an April 10 announcement that district attorney’s office would not file charges against Weinstein.
Three days after meeting with Battilana at their office, a spokesperson for Vance announced that the probe into the incident did not find enough evidence to pursue a case.
‘This case was taken seriously from the outset, with a thorough investigation conducted by our sex crimes unit,’ said Joan Vollero at the time.
‘After analyzing the available evidence, including multiple interviews with both parties, a criminal charge is not supported.’
Listening now: Battilana’s story has earned international attention since audio was released
Thoughts: Earlier this week she shared lyrics from the song ‘Wonderful Life’ (above)
Vollero denied that there was an correlation between the donation and the decision to not file charges in a statement to International Business News, the first outlet to report on the donation.
A spokesperson for Boies’ law firm also commented, stating: ‘David Boies has been a supporter of the District Attorney since long before 2015, including before he was first elected, and has never spoken to him about Harvey Weinstein.’
That revelation came just days after it was revealed that Vance had also received a $25,000 donation from Trump Organization lawyer Marc Kasowitz after the district attorney’s office declined to file charges against Ivanka and Donald Jr.
Battilana has not spoken about the incident in the past two years, which is likely due to the fact that she was asked to sign an NDA after receiving her settlement.
Battilana did, however, post a meme on Twitter early Monday that contained lyrics from the song ‘Wonderful Life’ by Black.
‘Look at me standing / Here on my own again / Up straight in the sunshine,’ read the post.
‘No need to run and hide / It’s a wonderful, wonderful life / No need to hide and cry / It’s a wonderful, wonderful life.’
She then shared a photo late that evening which showed her blowing a kiss, writing: ‘Good Morning to all the good people out there’.
WEINSTEIN’S ACCUSERS
Angelina Jolie said she had to turn down Weinstein’s advances as a young actress
Gwyneth Paltrow: The star told the New York Times that Weinstein touched her and suggested having joint massages in the bedroom before she started shooting Emma. She said she told her then boyfriend Brad Pitt about the incident and he confronted the mogul
Angelina Jolie: Jolie told the Time she had to turn down advances from Weinstein in the late 1990s and she chose never to work with him again. She said she warned other women about him
Judith Godreche: The French actress says Weinstein tried to massage her and pull off her sweater after asking her up to his Cannes suite to see the view in 1996
Dawn Dunning: Aspiring actress says she was called to a meeting about future film projects. When she arrived Weinstein presented her with three scripts for his next three movies which he would let her star in, only if she had three-way sex with him. She fled the hotel
Tomi-Ann Roberts: Weinstein met her when she was serving tables and told her to meet him at his home. When she arrived he was in the bath and told her she would give a better audition if she was naked. She says she refused and left
Asia Argento: The Italian actress has accused Weinstein of forcibly performing oral sex on her when she was 21. ‘He terrified me, and he was big. It wouldn’t stop. It was a nightmare.’ She said she went on to have consensual sex with him over the years that followed. She documented the alleged attack in her 2000 film Scarlet Diva
Katherine Kendall: The Swingers actress was told Weinstein had to stop off in his apartment to pick something up after a screening. He changed into a bathrobe and told her to massage her. When she resisted she said the mogul returned naked and chased her
Lucia Evans: Aspiring actress claims Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex on him. Speaking to the New Yorker, she said that she suffered years of trauma after the incident which occurred in a ‘casting meeting’ in a Miramax office in Manhattan
Gwyneth Paltrow revealed that Weinstein attempted to get her into a hotel bedroom and massage her when she was 22
Mira Sorvino: The Mighty Aphrodite actress told the New Yorker that Weinstein tried to massage her in a hotel room at the 1995 Toronto International Film Festival. He then went to her home in the middle of the night but she called a male friend to protect her. She said turning down the mogul adversely affected her career
Rosanna Arquette: The actress also said her career suffered after she rebuffed Weinstein’s advances. At a hotel meeting he tried to put her hand on his erect penis, she claims
Rose McGowan: The actress, who made her breakthrough in 1996 in the Weinstein-produced slasher revival movie Scream, reportedly sued Weinstein after he approached her during production of that movie. She signed a non-disclosure agreement at the close of the suit and has only referred to him obliquely in social media since. On Sunday she referred to being abused by a ‘monster’ and has previously referred to being raped by a studio head.
Ashley Judd: Judd’s film roles include the thriller Kiss the Girls – and says that during the filming of that movie Weinstein repeatedly asked her to watch him shower. She was one of the women who spoke out to The New York Times this week, saying: ‘Women have been talking about Harvey amongst ourselves for a long time, and it’s simply beyond time to have the conversation publicly.’
Zelda Perkins was 25 when, as an assistant of Weinstein’s in London, she reportedly confronted the mogul for harassing her and ‘several’ other women; she later settled out of court
Lauren O’Connor: A former employee of The Weinstein Company, she told executives there in the fall of 2015 that there was ‘a toxic environment for women at this company’ after one of her colleagues told her that Weinstein had pressured her into massaging him while he was naked, the NYT said.
Ambra Battilana: An Italian actress and model, she told the NYT that in March 2015 Weinstein invited her to his New York office. There, she said, he asked if her breasts were real before grabbing them and putting his hands up her skirt. She reported the alleged incident to police, but they did not press charges. According to the NYT, Weinstein later paid her off.
Laura Madden: An ex-employee, she told the NYT that Weinstein had asked her to give him massages from 1991 onwards, while they were both in London and Dublin. ‘It was so manipulative,’ she told the NYT. ‘You constantly question yourself – am I the one who is the problem?’ Weinstein denied knowledge.
Emily Nestor: Nestor was a temporary employee of the Weinstein Company for just one day in 2014 when Weinstein approached her and offered to boost her career in exchange for sex, the NYT reported.
Zelda Perkins: An assistant of Weinstein’s based in London in 1998; then 25, she reportedly confronted Weinstein after she and ‘several’ others were harassed and later settled out of court.
Elizabeth Karlsen, an Oscar-winning producer, said a female executive told her almost 30 years ago that she had found Weinstein naked in her bedroom in a Miramax-rented property
Elizabeth Karlsen: The Oscar-nominated producer of Carol and The Crying Game, among others, told The Hollywood Reporter on Sunday that almost 30 years ago, an unnamed young female executive who had worked at Miramax with Weinstein had found him naked in her bedroom one night. The exec was in a house rented by Miramax at the time to cut its overheads.
Liza Campbell: A freelance script reader, she told the UK’s Sunday Times that Weinstein had summoned her to his hotel room in London before telling her to get in the bath with him.
Lauren Sivan: The former Fox news host said that Weinstein trapped her in a closed restaurant and masturbated in front of her to completion in 2007. He took her to a closed restaurant beneath a club she had visited and attempted to kiss her, then when she refused he cornered her and made her watch him touch himself, according to The Huffington Post.
Jessica Hynes: The British actress, best known for her roles in the Bridget Jones movies and for co-creating and co-writing the sitcom Spaced, said she was invited to audition for Weinstein when she was 19 – in a bikini. Hynes, formerly known as Jessica Stevenson, said she refused to wear the skimpy item – and lost the job.
Romola Garai: British actress Romola Garai said she felt “violated” following a meeting with Harvey Weinstein in his London hotel room when she was 18 in which he was in a bathrobe. Garai, best known for her role in “Atonement”, said she had already been hired for a part but was told to audition privately with the Hollywood mogul because ‘you had to be personally approved by him’. “Like every other woman in the industry, I’ve had an ‘audition’ with Harvey Weinstein,” she told The Guardian. ‘So I had to go to his hotel room in the Savoy and he answered the door in his bathrobe. I was only 18. I felt violated by it’.